EEA Board Member Tobias Himmerich featured in Vodafone Stiftung Interview Series
Tobias Himmerich, founder and managing director of EDUvation and board member of the European EdTech Alliance, was recently featured in Vodafone Stiftung Deutschland’s interview series Von Vision zu Veränderung.
In the conversation, he reflects on more than ten years of experience working with EdTech startups and the persistent structural challenges they face in Germany. These include limited access to schools, fragmented public procurement, and the absence of test environments to validate new solutions.
His own journey began in the early 2010s, when he launched one of Germany’s first startups bringing native speakers into classrooms. Despite clear benefits for learners, implementation proved difficult due to a lack of clear contacts or decision-making processes at school or local authority level.
These early obstacles led to the founding of EDUvation, a support platform created by founders for founders, focused on helping young EdTech companies navigate the business side of the sector. Since then, the organisation has supported hundreds of teams and contributed to national and European initiatives.
Tobias highlights that the problem is rarely the product itself. Many founders enter the market with expectations shaped by other industries, only to discover that educational procurement follows a different timeline and structure.
“We’ve seen a whole series of startups fail. Not because the product was bad, but because they didn’t understand the market.”
He also points to the need for long-term infrastructure to support innovation, including feedback loops, better funding pathways and procurement models that are fit for purpose. Without this, he warns, teams risk developing solutions in isolation, disconnected from real users and needs.
As a board member of the European EdTech Alliance, Tobias brings attention to the need for stronger national frameworks that position countries like Germany not only as adopters, but as active contributors to the development of EdTech.
Read the full interview here.
